*LOAD-TRUENAME* and ASDF

[Kevin Layer]

Jason Miller wrote:

>> On 09:48 Mon 29 Aug     , Kevin Layer wrote:
>> > I've avoided getting into this discussion, but I feel I need to ask:
>> > why use *load-truename* instead of *load-pathname*?
>> > 
>> > *load-truename* goes through symbolic links (even though the ANS says
>> > nothing about it, this is the behavior of implementations I know of)
>> > and that is almost always the wrong thing.  GNU make doesn't do it, I
>> > don't see why ASDF should do it.  A build system should never itself
>> > follow symlinks, because it defeats systems that have been in place
>> > for 30+ years: linked directories of binary files linking to a single
>> > source directory.
>> Somewhat off-topic, but I'll bite:
>> 
>> This is because *load-pathname* is likely to be a relative
>> pathname, ..

This is certainly not true in Allegro.  In lisps where it is true,
it's easily fixable with (merge-pathnames *load-pathname*).